This looks like a false dichotomy. There are far more philosophies than this, both implicit and explicitly stated, on the nature of existence and suffering.
I expect that for pretty much everyone there is a level of suffering that they would be willing to endure for the rest of their lives. Essentially everyone that hasn’t yet killed themselves is evidence of this, and those that do express intending to kill themselves very often report that continuing to live seems unbearable in some sense or other—which seems to indicate a greater than average degree of suffering.
Likewise I expect that for pretty much everyone, there exists a level of suffering beyond which they’d rather die if they knew that the suffering was was going to persist for the rest of their life. They may say now that they’d rather endure it, but there is plenty of evidence that people routinely underestimate their reactions in such circumstances.
So my expectation is that even at its simplest, it’s a scale. Then this is confounded by all sorts of other considerations such as whether they feel moral obligations to continue enduring suffering (especially if other people are depending upon them in some way), how they would like to be perceived in the future (for both outcomes not just one), whether they want to be a person who endures suffering, and so on.
Let me offer a perspective on the endurist-serenist framework that might help clarify things. The core distinction isn’t about mapping different levels of suffering tolerance—it’s about whether there exists ANY level of suffering that shouldn’t be endured when death is the only alternative.
Pure endurists maintain that no amount of suffering, no matter how extreme, justifies choosing death. This isn’t a position on a spectrum—it’s a categorical view that life must be preserved regardless of suffering intensity. We see this most clearly in institutions like the Catholic Church, which maintains that suicide is never permissible, no matter how extreme or hopeless the suffering.
The existence of varying individual tolerance levels doesn’t negate this fundamental philosophical divide. The key split remains between those who believe ANY amount of suffering should be endured when death is the only alternative (endurists) and those who believe there exists some level of suffering that shouldn’t be endured in those circumstances (serenists).
The fact that most people’s practical positions fall somewhere between pure endurist and pure serenist stances doesn’t make this a false dichotomy—it just reflects the complex reality of how philosophical principles manifest in human psychology and behavior.
This looks like a false dichotomy. There are far more philosophies than this, both implicit and explicitly stated, on the nature of existence and suffering.
I expect that for pretty much everyone there is a level of suffering that they would be willing to endure for the rest of their lives. Essentially everyone that hasn’t yet killed themselves is evidence of this, and those that do express intending to kill themselves very often report that continuing to live seems unbearable in some sense or other—which seems to indicate a greater than average degree of suffering.
Likewise I expect that for pretty much everyone, there exists a level of suffering beyond which they’d rather die if they knew that the suffering was was going to persist for the rest of their life. They may say now that they’d rather endure it, but there is plenty of evidence that people routinely underestimate their reactions in such circumstances.
So my expectation is that even at its simplest, it’s a scale. Then this is confounded by all sorts of other considerations such as whether they feel moral obligations to continue enduring suffering (especially if other people are depending upon them in some way), how they would like to be perceived in the future (for both outcomes not just one), whether they want to be a person who endures suffering, and so on.
Let me offer a perspective on the endurist-serenist framework that might help clarify things. The core distinction isn’t about mapping different levels of suffering tolerance—it’s about whether there exists ANY level of suffering that shouldn’t be endured when death is the only alternative.
Pure endurists maintain that no amount of suffering, no matter how extreme, justifies choosing death. This isn’t a position on a spectrum—it’s a categorical view that life must be preserved regardless of suffering intensity. We see this most clearly in institutions like the Catholic Church, which maintains that suicide is never permissible, no matter how extreme or hopeless the suffering.
The existence of varying individual tolerance levels doesn’t negate this fundamental philosophical divide. The key split remains between those who believe ANY amount of suffering should be endured when death is the only alternative (endurists) and those who believe there exists some level of suffering that shouldn’t be endured in those circumstances (serenists).
The fact that most people’s practical positions fall somewhere between pure endurist and pure serenist stances doesn’t make this a false dichotomy—it just reflects the complex reality of how philosophical principles manifest in human psychology and behavior.